Call for debate on land reform

Ethiopia must hold a nationwide debate on land reform as it sits at the "crossroads" of its future, the international charity Oxfam GB urged on Thursday. Oxfam director Barbara Stocking said that as the country began the path to development, land ownership was a key lifeline to the 56 million people in Ethiopia who live in poverty. "People in Ethiopia are chronically poor, and time and again we see that the smallest shock can send millions of people to the brink of starvation," she told journalists at the end of a seven-day visit to the country. "While we must learn the lessons from the last crisis, we must also look ahead and invest in development, so that people can escape the vicious cycle of famine." Stocking said that Ethiopia’s impoverished rural farmers must be encouraged to take risks if they were to escape the cycle of dependency that many face. She also said the government’s new land certification scheme, to try to improve security of tenure for farmers, left many key issues unanswered. The certification scheme aims to offer greater security to Ethiopia’s farmers – whose land is owned by the state - and encourage them to invest more heavily in their farms. But Stocking said the legal guarantees offered to farmers for the land they work were still unclear. "Ultimately if we are going to lift 56 million people in this country out of poverty we need a broader debate on land ownership, incentives to stop dependency on food aid and alternatives to agriculture as a way of making a living," she said. "Because of the land ownership issue, many farmers are not investing and improving the quality of the land". Oxfam said that if the government rejected its call for debate, it would continue to lobby until it was heard. Oxfam is currently spending around US $6 million in Ethiopia in emergency and development work. Stocking, who was on her first trip to the country, said that government alone would not solve Ethiopia’s recurrent food crises, and that charities had a key role to play.